


love songs for motherless girls

by silverfoxflower



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Episode: s01e01 The End's Beginning, F/F, First Time, Murder, Revenge, Witcher Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28428267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverfoxflower/pseuds/silverfoxflower
Summary: “You said,” Yennefer repeated slowly, “the girl in the woods was my destiny.”Renfri shrugged, a curl falling over her naked shoulder. “I’m a girl,” she said, “and I’m in the woods.”"Even if you fancy yourself a soothsayer, you should know that destiny has no hold on me," Yennefer said, her eyes falling to sweep of Renfri’s shoulder blades, thinking, unbidden, of the wings of a bird. "I won’t go chasing your nocturnal fables.”"What would you do?" Renfri laughed, "cut down the stars that dare defy you?"
Relationships: Renfri | Shrike/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 20
Kudos: 73
Collections: The Witcher Secret Santa 2020





	love songs for motherless girls

**Author's Note:**

> For yoursummerfrost for Witcher Secret Santa! Darling, your taste in rarepairs is magnifique!
> 
> Please find the accompanying spotify playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0L7Zjt7o6nLt3U06DKSEMm?si=MZ9mzuRTQaGrzaZjMv2u1Q) and a gorgeous cover by l1p3k4:

Blaviken was a speck on the map of the Northern Kingdoms, a shabby, no-account town where nothing of note had ever occurred and nothing had changed for hundreds of years. 

It was the perfect place for Yennefer to retreat to lick her wounds. 

She arrived in town on a bitterly cold day, under an ominous grey sky that suited her mood. Yennefer ignored the sharp, suspicious stares of the villagers as she pushed open the tavern doors, striding straight to the bar and into the face of the agitated barman. 

“I’m here for the alderman,” Yennefer said clearly, aware that the eyes and ears of the tavern were on her. She could hardly summon the energy to care. The past months had been rough - hunts that lasted for weeks with little coin to show for it. Her potions were depleted and her body ached bitterly. Yennefer could feel the winter coming, the chill settling deep into her bones. If she didn’t shelter soon, she would be lost to the swirling snows. 

One more job, and she could rest. 

“ _The alderman_ ,” Yennefer repeated again, louder, when the man behind the bar elected to glower instead of answering. 

A mousy-looking barmaid looked nervously from the silent man to Yennefer. “He’s down the alley-” 

“Isadora!” the man barked. He narrowed his eyes at Yennefer. “Leave. We don’t serve your kind.” 

Witchers? Yennefer wondered, or Cat Witchers in particular? She wore her medallion under her tunic, close to her chest, but it burned nonetheless. 

“I’ve no interest in your water-thinned ale or over-cooked truncheons,” Yennefer said acidly, “I’ve come for the alderman. Give me his location, and I will leave you to your tedious scuttling.” 

The slam of a tankard on a table behind her. Yennefer turned slowly, placing the source of the threat. 

“You heard him," a man growled, stepping from his table with his chest puffed. Looking for a fight. He was dressed as a bandit, and wore weapons enough to make good with his threat.

Yennefer's eyes grew flat. "Sit. This is no business of yours."

"You don't give the orders around here, you mutant freak," the man said, and the barman behind Yennefer spit in agreement, growling,

"Go on your own or at the end of a rope." He stabbed his finger towards the door.

She could do it, Yennefer thought. She could have all of their fingers raining on the floor as swiftly she could draw her sword. But what would be the point? She'd be stuck in Blaviken with a stinking kikimora corpse and the local guard on her heel. 

Still, it would be satisfying, and that alone made its consideration worthwhile.

"Can you give it a fucking rest?" A voice cut through the thick atmosphere, and Yennefer's eye slid to a girl in red, shoving the interloper into his seat with an air of causal command. When the barkeep opened his mouth, she speared with with a look. "Please forgive my friend's interference with your day," she said, turning her attention to Yennefer with sharp curiousity. "Hopefully he'll have found his composure by market's day tomorrow. Two ales here," she snapped at the petulant barman. "For me and my friend. Yes, I'm speaking to you now."

Yennefer found herself reluctantly impressed when the bandit retreated, muttering "Sorry, Renfri," and the barman slammed down two tankards of ale, snatching Renfri's coins with a resentful look.

Who was she, to hold the town so in thrall? She had a fine, youthful face, but wore the signs of hard living, her fingernails black with dirt, her clothes patched in a workman-like manner.

Around her neck, Yennefer's medallion hung still as a stone. Yet there was something of the girl's eyes that made Yennefer think of a predator.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Renfri asked, climbing into her barstool, where half a chicken sat, torn rib from rib with a casual savagery.

"No thank you," Yennefer said, and Renfri followed her line of sight to her own meal.

"Yes," Renfri said ruefully, picking up a wing and considering it half-heartedly. "If my mother could see me, she'd be mortified.*

"Perhaps she would overlook the table manners, considering her daughter runs with bandits," Yennefer said lightly, and Renfri laughed.

"Sharp eyes on you, Witcher. What brings you here? Hunting a monster?"

"Travelling by way of the swamp," Yennefer said vaguely.

"That sounds dangerous," Renfri asked, without a hint of irony. "Why not travel by the main roads?"

_Because of bandits such as yourself_ , Yennefer thought. Outwardly, she shrugged her shoulders. "I go wherever the coin leads me."

"I hope you're not expecting to strike it big here," Renfri said dryly, looking around. "Two more beers," she ordered from the barman, earning a glower and a pitcher slammed before her on the bar.

Yennefer smiled thinly. "I'll take my chances."

Renfri threw her a coy smile. "Ah Witcher, perhaps you _are_ the one I've been seeking. More and more I see monsters wherever I go."

What did she want? Yennefer could not put a finger on it, not yet. The girl was at moments sly and earnest, a serpent among the apples. 

She wondered, looking at Renfri's smile, how many had reached their hand towards that venomous fruit, whether it tasted sweet on the tongue. If Yennefer was staying longer, she might consider trying it, herself. 

"I'm not who you seek," Yennefer said, finishing her tankard and wiping her mouth on her knuckles delicately. "I'm just passing through. My gratitude for the drink, though."

"Ho, Witcher," a fresh-faced child with thick yellow braids presented herself. "Isadora said you were looking for my father. Do you seek coin for the kikimora?"

Yennefer turned briefly, to see Renfri flit away behind her, then followed the child from the tavern.

\--

"Are you truly a Witcher?" Marika asked cheerfully, as they maneuvered through the thin, dingy streets of Blaviken. "I've never met a female Witcher before."

"That's because girls are too obedient to be snatched by the likes of us," Yennefer said wickedly.

Marika laughed, undeterred. "Will you take me with you when you leave? I could learn to be a Witcher, if you'll let me."

This little predator, Yennefer thought a little fondly, spending her bloodlust on rats and dogs. She would make a fine weapon in the right hands, perhaps a monster in the wrong ones. "There's nothing of this life you should envy, girl." Yennefer said, steering her horse away from a shabby-looking turnip cart.

"I'll take anything that gets me out of here," Marika said flatly. "I want … need to see more in the world than Blaviken. There's nothing to do here except going to the boring old market."

Yennefer could sympathize with that, at least. "We shall see," she said quietly, and Marika grinned brightly.

"We're here," Marika pointed to the large, out-of-place tower that jutted into the cold, grey sky. It reeked of magic, which Yennefer sensed like the vibration of a bowstring in her hand, down her spine.

\--

Yennefer curled her lip as she looked around at the lush trees and scantily-clad servant girls. She did not like being tricked, even less so when it was by a mage.

The wizard before her introduced himself as Stregabor, explaining his use of the tower as Yennefer looked at him flatly, displeasure written plainly across her face. 

She did not know Stregabor, but she knew men of his ilk who mired themselves in magic, politics or money, their ambitions entwined inexorably with their disgusting vices. Yennefer found that when men amassed too much power, they tended to bloat with it. Stregabor was a man so bloated that he resembled a corpse in a river. 

“I’ve come to trade monster for coin,” Yennefer said coldly. “If you have another exchange in mind, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time - and more grievously, mine.” 

"Don't be so hasty, my dear," Stregabor said, and Yennefer's hand twitched closer to the crossbow slung on her hip. "You are in the business of killing monsters, are you not? As it stands, I have a monster that needs killing."

"What kind?" Yennefer asked with tight suspicion.

"The worst kind," Stregabor drawled, plucking a hothouse lily from a vine which bobbed across his path. He crushed the petals between his fingers as he spoke. "The human kind. Its name is Renfri."

\--

"... destiny is a strange beast, and now she comes for me with bloody talons outstretched-"

"I understand you fear her." Yennefer interrupted. She sat at the wizard's table, but was offered no refreshment and would have taken none. "That's why you hole yourself up in this backwater, this mole on the arse of Redania. But she has run you to ground, and pinned you here like a rat in a cage."

Stregabor smiled tightly in his displeasure, "clever." He said, "cleverness is dangerous in women. How fortunate you are a Witcher."

"I grow rapidly weary of these mysticisms," Yennefer said sharply. "Speak plainly, or not at all."

"Very well," Stregabor said. "This girl is a handmaiden of Lillit, born under the Black Sun. She and her ilk were prophesized to fill the rivers with blood in welcome of their dark goddess. Years ago, I vanquished nearly all the doomed girls myself, but Renfri slipped through my fingers, and now she has come for her revenge."

"Vanquished?" Yennefer asked, her voice dangerously amused. "These young girls must have put up quite a fight."

"They're not human," Stregabor shook his head sharply. "We know they exhibit horrendous internal mutations and murderous tendencies."

Yennefer stayed silent, disgust roiling heavily in her stomach. Either willfully blind to Yennefer's clear scorn, or simply desperate, Stregabor continued with tales of Renfri the monster, Renfri who cut down noblemen for coin and was flaunted her magical resistance, who had the power to kill them all. Tales that seemed at bold contrast to the girl in the tavern, who ate with dirty fingers and bought drinks for strangers. 

"I had no choice," Stregabor said, "In fear for the Queen's own children, I sent a man after her, only to find him dead after she shoved her brooch pin in his ear. She has chased me for years bent on revenge, and now she has tracked me here." Stregabor's lips twisted angrily. "Kill her, I beg you. I will pay anything you ask."

"Not interested," Yennefer said, standing abruptly. "Find yourself a cut-throat … maybe one who won't lose to an unarmed teenage girl in the woods."

“Wait! Don’t try to tell me that you have a conscience,” Stregabor stood hurriedly to follow, “I know the reputation of your school.” 

“I’m not opposed to killing humans,” Yennefer paused, her voice dangerously low, “but I choose the jobs I take.” Many, if not most, Witchers clung hard to the myth of neutrality, believing that they lived apart from the tangled web of culture and politics that governed the rest of civilization. Yennefer was not that naive. Shunned and disregarded as she was, there was power in her hands, far, far more power than she had when she was a farm girl worth less to her parents than the price of a pig.

The only reason she did not think to interfere in this case was because it would amuse her to see Stregabor dead.

“Choose this. I could give you anything you wish for,” Stregabor said, and suddenly Yennefer felt an invasive tremor run down her spine. She had especially strong shields, even for a Witcher, and she could feel him prodding at them like a child would a dead rat on the street, looking for weaknesses to exploit. 

Mages. Yennefer set her teeth. How she despised them. 

“Oh,” Stregabor said, chuckling as Yennefer forcibly expelled him from her mind, standing abruptly and raising her hand to her sword for good measure. “You’re a tricky one, aren’t you? Why don’t you tell me what it is that you want. Power? Coin? Perhaps …” he inclined his head, “a life without the curse of your mutations?” 

He meant, likely, to take the scars from her face and the yellow from her eyes, to make her a pleasing shape like they did the simpering little she-mages of their order. But Yennefer’s first thought had little to do with aesthetics. 

Long ago, she had dreamed of a child, a life that loved her and needed her above all else. The Trials had made her sterile, and she had searched far and wide for a cure. Djinns, dragons, rumors of ancient magic … they had all failed her in the end. 

Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, for Stregabor sat back with a satisfied expression. “There,” he said, “perhaps we can come to some manner of agreement after all."

"I wouldn't count on it," Yennefer said coldly. 

“Very well,” Stregabor said, happy to take her words as capitulation. “If you can, bring me the girl’s body whole.”

“For what?” Yennefer’s voice was sharp.

“Your involvement ends at her death,” Stregabor said with a bland smile. “Don’t play-act concern we both know you’re not capable of.” 

\--

Yennefer dunked her head in the cold stream, thinking mournfully of soft inn beds and heated baths. Nothing she could afford, now that her coin had been cheated from her. Conveniently, Marika had been gone when Yennefer left the wizard's tower, or she would have received a heated lecture on the price of doing bad business.

The crack of a stick in the undergrowth. Yennefer glanced up, not bothering to hide her nakedness, crouched by the stream and stripped to the waist, her hair a wet rope down one shoulder.

"I searched for you in town," Renfri said, stepping from the undergrowth, sure-footed and silent, blissfully unaware of how close Yennefer had come to drawing blade against her. Pausing at the shore, Renfri stared boldly at Yennefer's body, tracing her scars with a gaze at once heated and curious. "I had hoped that you hadn't already left."

Yennefer straightened, wringing out her hair. "I would not stay in that inn if you paid me," she said sullenly. "one look and I can tell those rooms are crawling with vermin and stink of piss." 

Renfri laughed, a bright, startling sound. "And here I thought you were running from me. The girl brought you to see Stregabor, didn't she?"

"She did," Yennefer said, walking to throw a log in her fire. "But you give yourself too much importance to think I'd alter my plans on your account."

"Not even to kill me?" Renfri asked archly. "I know the tales he told you, now shall I tell you mine? The man who raped and robbed me in the woods … the things I did to survive …" her lips twisted. "He took everything from me."

"Then you should kill him," Yennefer said, and Renfri looked to her with sharp surprise. "What?" Yennefer pulled a tunic over her head, the water on her skin bleeding through the thin fabric. "You think I would say differently? It is no business of mine. But I would kill him as well, had I had the misfortune of being born in your shoes."

Renfri was silent for a beat, her eyes following Yennefer as she stepped into her trousers and drew the belt tight around her thin waist. Her clothes weren't quite dry yet, but they were clean. It was the least she could do to stay sane, to feel human on the Path. 

Yennefer turned back in time to see the slow heat in Renfri's eyes. Not altogether surprising. Not altogether unwelcome.

The mutagens they gave Yennefer had straightened her twisted body, pounded out her weaknesses like a blacksmith pounds silver straight and sharpens it to a keen edge, a weapon with a purpose. They had not made her beautiful - her body was hard, her feminine features disrupted by a spiderweb of scars across her left cheek, a present from a spat with a Wolf Witcher. They had even taken her violet eyes and replaced them with a yellow, alien gaze. 

Still, Yennefer knew interest when she saw it, And knew that when she stepped into Renfri's space, the girl would not flinch away.

“Careful with that covetous gaze, princess … If you think to seduce me to do your bidding,” Yennefer said, her breath soft in the space between their mouths. She slid a knuckle under Renfri's sharp chin and tilted it upwards, “know that I am not so easily won.” 

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Renfri replied huskily, her clever fingers falling to the waistband of Yennefer's pants. “I’m seducing you because I want to fuck, obviously.” 

This pretty girl with her pretty mouth. Yennefer wanted to bite her apple-red lips, to spread her legs and eat her like a ripe fruit, until she was wet and wailing, savage as the promise in her eyes. 

\--

"Am I a monster?" Renfri panted, twisting under Yennefer's fingers, "would you lay so with a monster?"

"My medallion does not move for you," Yennefer said, in lieu of an answer.

"It burns me, though," she gasped, and Yennefer shifted to note that her medallion had left a large pink welt on Renfri's breast. A brand in silver. 

With tight arms, Renfri pulled Yennefer close, arching against her as the medallion burned her once more.

"Silver is for monsters," she murmured against Yennefer's lips.

"We are all made of such tragedies," Yennefer said, with false tenderness. 

\--

_The girl in the woods will be with you always. She is your destiny._

Yennefer awoke at the first bird call of the morning, wrapped in unexpected warmth and tangled in limbs, her thin glossamer of sleep shredding in the light of dawn.

"Hey," Yennefer said, shaking Renfri's shoulder. "You were speaking in your sleep."

Renfri stirred in her arms, her lashes fluttering lazily as she said, “Truly? I had a dream … a dream that I was a wolf and that I ate the entire world. It was heavy in my belly, like a stone. So heavy I sank with it, down, down into the water. Then the world became an apple, and the wolf became a girl. I was that girl, swallowing the apple and sinking into sleep, falling into a dream that started as soon as I opened my eyes.” She sat up, yawning inelegantly as she examined Yennefer with a serious expression. 

“You said,” Yennefer repeated slowly, “the girl in the woods was my destiny.” 

Renfri shrugged, a curl falling over her naked shoulder. “I’m a girl,” she said, “and I’m in the woods.”

"Even if you fancy yourself a soothsayer, you should know that destiny has no hold on me," Yennefer said, her eyes falling to sweep of Renfri’s shoulder blades, thinking, unbidden, of the wings of a bird. "I won’t go chasing your nocturnal fables.” 

"What would you do?" Renfri laughed, "cut down the stars that dare defy you?"

Yennefer shook her head at this foolishness and rolled to her feet, leaving Renfri pale and alone in the tostled blankets. 

“Have you decided, then?” Renfri looked up at Yennefer from beneath her eyelashes. She had no practice at looking coy, and instead looked sinister, which was also charming in its way. 

“I’ve no promises to make,” Yennefer said archly, though, of course, she knew that she would not kill Renfri. 

So much for not being so easily won. 

\--

"How far are you willing to go?" Yennefer asked, buckling her swords to her back.

"I'd kill every man, woman and child in this town if that's what it took," Renfri replied immediately, her gaze fixed boldly on Yennefer’s body as if she enjoyed equally the view and the thought of wholesale slaughter.

_Murderous tendencies_ , Yennefer remembered. Perhaps not so far off after all.

"You cannot buy my blade, but I can give you a chance," Yennefer said, "I’ll get you into the tower. Then, your vengeance is your own." 

"That doesn't dissuade me. I've killed men before," Renfri said, sprawling casually in her nakedness as she watched Yennefer pack up her camp and not lifting a finger to help. "This, I want to make last."

Yennefer laughed thinly, twisting her hair at her nape before bringing up her hood, "I'm sorry I won't be there to see it then."

\--

Yennefer chewed the herbs in her mouth and spit them into the bowl, mixing the concoction with her fingers, to the disgust of Renfri's men. The girl watched with interest, however, her sharp chin hanging over Yennefer's shoulder.

The resulting liquid was strained into a vial, a crude but effective narcotic. “It will make you sleep as the dead,” Yennefer said, her tongue and fingers stained indigo.

Renfri took the vial gingerly, the dark liquid oozing viscously around the glass. 

Nohorn scowled. “You trust this Witcher? Could be poison in there for all you know.” 

"What an effort on my part to kill your princess so circumspectly," Yennefer smiled thinly. "When I could have gutted her in her sleep."

"Perhaps she wishes to deliver you to the wizard alive," Nohorn said ominously. 

"Oh," Yennefer inclined her head. "That would be a neat trick, had I thought of it." She looked at Renfri. "Take it, or not. I cannot force it down your throat."

Renfri swallowed, and Yennefer thought scornfully of the girl's earlier bravado. "I take this," Renfri said, "and you will bring me into the tower?"

"As one dead," Yennefer said patiently. "With his magic stoppered by your power, Stregabor will not know the difference until it is too late."

"And when will I awake?" Renfri asked. 

"Hopefully after I'm long gone," Yennefer smiled thinly. It was a frightening prospect, she knew, to leave one's unconscious body vulnerable to the enemy. If Stregabor immediately burned her corpse, or cut her open, it would be an ugly way to die.

"This is too dangerous," Nohorn said, glowering at Yennefer. "I say we stick with our original plan."

"The wholesale slaughter of innocents won't draw Stregabor from his defenses, and that you know," Yennefer said dryly. "But if you wish to indulge your blade on the likes of women and children, who am I to stop you? I dearsay, the likes of you would be used to it."

Nohorn lunged forward, stopped by Renfri with a hard push to his sternum.

"This is _my choice_ , Nohorn," she said, and Yennefer smiled, pleased to see her make it.

\--

They sent one of Renfri’s men to cry rumors of her death in town. Yennefer suggested giving him a bloody wound to sell the story, but Renfri vetoed that, much to his relief. 

In the dark of night, on the edge of town, Marika found Yennefer, her smile wavering when she saw the bundle draped over the back of Yennefer’s horse. 

“Is that …” Marika asked, “did you really kill her?” 

Yennefer raised a finger to her lips, smiling mysteriously. The child tripped over her own feet in her eagerness to return to town, running up the tower steps with a clatter of feet and leaving Yennefer to heft Renfri’s bulk over her shoulder before following. 

Renfri might look as light as a bird, but she felt as heavy as if she had stones in her belly. Yennefer grunted as she deposited Renfri’s body on a table by the door, only as gently as she could manage. The table was empty and so conveniently placed that Yennefer realized that Stregabor had been expecting her for some time. 

“You have done excellently,” Stregabor said, almost disgustingly delighted as Yennefer peeled away a corner of Renfri’s cloak to reveal her face - slack and ivory-pale in sleep.

Under the cloak, Renfri's breast was still and empty of breath, her skin cold to the touch. Yennefer could only hope that the potion had not been mixed _too_ potently.

“It’s not yours until you render payment,” Yennefer barked as Stregabor stepped forward. She did not know the power at his disposal, whether his magical senses would sniff the life under Yennefer's potions, whether Renfri would manage to kill the man when she awoke, if she awoke.

Yennefer could only buy her time, but she did not intend to stick around to find the answers to these questions.

Stregabor paused, masking his annoyance poorly as he drew something from his robes. “Of course, how could I forget? I have contracted a professional, after all.” 

“What is this?” Yennefer asked flatly, as he handed her a letter.

“Why,” Stregabor said, “my end of the bargain, of course. A writ of passage with my own seal. Go to Aretuza and ask for Giltine. He knows well the shapes of enchantresses. If he cannot see something of you to work with ...” Stregabor inclined his head, and smiled. 

“This is not what we agreed upon,” Yennefer snarled, her hand rising to her sword. 

“It is what you’ll get,” Stregabor said. “What else will you do, Witcher? Will you slay me? In front of the child?” 

Yennefer turned to see Marika, who still stood in the corner, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. 

"Then would you slay her as well, then? For being a witness?"

A fine trick. Yennefer could see the satisfaction in Stregabor’s expression. Melitele willing, it wouldn’t last for long. 

Wordlessly, Yennefer grabbed the letter from his hand, then turned on her heel and left, slamming the tower door behind her. 

\--

For all her words, Marika did not follow when Yennefer left town. It was just as well, Yennefer thought darkly. A girl as that would not survive the world outside. Better she remain cloistered, lamenting the life she could have had, than experience its end on the teeth of a predator. 

As she rode through the grey drizzle of morning, Yennefer’s thoughts circled again and again to Renfri. Her frenzied eyes and inelegant smile, her pale, thin wrists and fingers that flitted through the gloom like the flicker of flame. She was reckless to the point of stupidity - who would trust a Witcher-made potion, thrown together with spit and half-rotted herbs, never before tested on a human? She could just as well be poisoned, or trapped in sleep as that wizard sliced her to ribbons. 

Yennefer forced herself to continue moving, gritting her teeth against the icy rain that slid down her spine. It was no business of hers what became of the girl. She had given Renfri a chance, which was more than she asked, more than she was owed. 

She should wash her hands of this. Blaviken had given her nothing, and she had no reason to return.

\--

Market day. 

The townsfolk hurried out of Yennefer’s way as she stalked to the mage tower, her dark curls like a thunderstorm, an ominous portent around her shoulders. As she neared, she muttered a small sign of Aard, sending a nearby bottle flying towards the window. 

To her surprise, it went right through. No shields. 

No one moved to stop Yennefer as she threw open the door and walked cautiously upstairs.

At the top, Renfri stood, looking dully at Stregabor's body at her feet, dead and bloodied, the victim of vengeance delayed. The mage's illusions had died along with him, and the room around them revealed the ruins of a wizards tower, dusty and filled with broken instruments, torn books. The sun streamed in through the hole in the window, lighting upon the crown of Renfri’s head like a golden circlet. 

"You did it," Yennefer said, surprised. She walked forward and prodded the dead lump with the toe of her boot. "Are you satisfied?" She asked with real curiosity.

Vengeance, she had always thought, was such a fragile thing to make a life around. She could understand the fury, of course, but what came afterwards?

"You should have seen how he cried," Renfri said, her mouth twisting into a grimace. "How he wailed and begged for his life when I had him under my blade. Before me, he was just a man, and what a sad, weak man he was."

Yennefer remained silent.

“What if he’s right?” Renfri asked, her eyes flicking up to Yennefer’s. “What if I am destined to eat the world?” 

“Then eat it,” Yennefer said conversationally, “consume it whole, take what it owes you, and spit out the rest.” She bent to retrieve Renfri's sword, wiping the flat of the blade on the spill of Stregabor’s robes before offering it to the girl, hilt first. “Or better yet, don’t believe in that shit. If there’s some divine order to this,” she gestured around her, “I’ve yet to see it.” 

Renfri snorted bitterly. “So what? I … I just accept that I was torn from my kingdom for nothing? Luck of the draw? A poor hand of gwent?” 

_Something like that_ , Yennefer thought, amused at her own pretensions for dispensing advice. As if she had ever accepted the pain of her own upbringing, the loneliness and self-hatred, the hunger it left in her. When Renfri dreamt of feasting, Yennefer dreamt of famine. Long, cold nights with dust on her tongue. The gold of autumn turning over to the barren winter. Her body might be whole, but her spirit was still twisted - they hadn’t managed to touch that in the Trials, at least. 

“I won’t,” Renfri said coldly, “I won’t be what they say I am.” 

“Even though you murdered the wizard?” Yennefer asked dryly. 

“If there was a measure of justice in this world that could touch him, he would be blighted for the wrongs he’s done to me, and so many other girls,” Renfri glanced hatefully at Stregabor’s body. “It was justice working through my hand that felled him. It was not murder.” 

“I didn’t take you for a zealot,” Yennefer replied, though she did not disagree. She wished that she had been as sophisticated as Renfri was, at her age. Perhaps then she would not have made the choices she did. 

“You said that you would go,” Renfri said, cutting her eyes to Yennefer’s. “But you came back for me.” This girl was too sharp. 

“Well,” Yennefer said airily,. “Stregabor didn’t deliver what he promised me, so I thought that if you had left him alive, I’d murder him instead.” 

Renfri laughed, surprised. “I suppose,” she said, “you’d never admit to worry for me.” 

“Never,” Yennefer said dryly. “We Witchers don’t feel, remember? I take payment in coin, or the flesh of children.” 

“I’m no child,” Renfri said, walking before Yennefer to the tower window. In the circle of broken glass, she stood as a silhouette against the noon sun, reflecting pink and yellow and orange through the colored panes. She turned, her eyes bright as they met Yennefer’s. “But if you want my flesh, I’ll give it to you freely.” 

“Hm,” Yennefer said, and stepped over Stregabor’s body. She hooked her finger in the ‘v’ of Renfri’s tunic, meeting little resistance as she drew it down to expose the brand of her medallion. The new-healed wound felt hot to her fingertips. 

She kissed Renfri at the hollow of her collarbone, thinking of vipers and apples.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](https://greyduckgreygoose.tumblr.com/tagged/myfic)


End file.
